Sep 22, 2008

During our really short visit to Uruguay I came across some stencils in the streets of Montevideo (Uruguay's capital) that caught my eye. They were relatively small and most of them were located in the same wall (the exception is the "Glasgow" graffiti that you can see here).

We were just three days in Montevideo, so of course I wasn't able to see all the city in such short time. We stayed around downtown and the old city mostly, spending our Sunday at the Tristan Narvaja fair, a street fair I love that reminds me of "El Rastro" in Spain. And we have lunch at the market near the port as any tourist should do.

But during all our walks up and down the city I noticed that the walls were more covered by posters and flyers than by paintings. Again, maybe we just were in the wrong part of the town and maybe there were tons of graffitis somewhere else.

Nevertheless, it was at a very small street in the old part of the city, were I came across these stencils that -as you can see- were kind of funny, mostly due to the text added to the images...

"Wanted"

"Alf in Music"(that in Spanish can also be read as "Finally Music")

"Welcome to the future"

"No One is Safe"(this building is an Uruguayan landmark)

I loved the first one for obvious reasons, that "wanted" makes all the difference in the world, but the two last ones are pretty good too.

If you by any chance know any neighborhood in UY with more street art, please let me know. I may not go back soon but I am sure some readers will appreciate the info!

6 comments:

Salvo
said...

Hi, Montevideo's guy here. There are plently of stencils around this city, perhaps not awesome ones but pretty cool and meaningful. They are spread all around, metropolitan and urban areas. Parque Rodó, Pocitos, Prado, Punta Carretas and many well-off "P" neighbourhoods (there just happens to be many of them... I mean "p", forget the "well off"). This trend is settling more and more and, as Old City Stencil, they seem to catch your eye for the blend of witty messages with some cool artistic graphic performance.

Salvo: Thanks for the data! I was wondering about Pocitos as I thought it may be a place with more youth around. I noticed your site also starts with a stencil... as the link in your name is not redirecting correctly, I am adding it to this commment, just in case someone wants to see some graphic design from UY: http://www.circulosalvo.com/

Mel: We visited Colonia too. I will post some graffitis we found there some other day, but the ones I saw there were not stencils, just graffitis... I would have laughed out loud of just seeing a Mr. T in an environment like Colonia!!

Hi, I'm in Montevideo too. Among many other places there's a pub at the corner of Paullier and Prato streets (Parque Rodó) all covered in stencils. I can e-mail you some pictures of them if you like...

hi, i'm from Montevideo Uruguay, and I've just found your post about some stencils ("Montevideo Street Art"). I was really surprised and pleased, as well to find your blog. I have some appreciations to make to the comments about the stenclis you've photographed.

1- "Alf in Musica"It referred to a Radio station campaign that claimed "Al fin música" ("finally music")

2- "Nadie a Salvo""Palacio Salvo" is the name of that emblematic building. "Salvo", as you posted, means "safe"